The invention relates to a set in sheet form consisting of at least one information carrier in the form of a card with carrier material lying in the same plane as well as apparatus and a method for producing such a set.
Arrangements of information carriers with carrier material are variously known in the prior art. They were originally available predominantly in roll form. In this case the arrangement of the information carriers in the set served and continues to serve for the automation and simplification of processing of the information carriers.
A set of information carriers and carrier material in roll form is described for example in U.S. Pat. No. 3,920,122. The information carriers in card form which are described there are separated from the strip of carrier material by a stamping; the separation takes place in this example by means of a kind of line of perforations in a specific configuration which is intended to allow the border of an information carrier released from the carrier material to appear as smooth as possible.
A set of information carriers and carrier material in sheet form is disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. No. 4,944,978. Here the separation of the information carries from the carrier material is achieved by long circular cuts; the circle is only partially closed in the cut produced by stamping. Thus small bridges remain between the information carriers and carrier material which give the set sufficient strength for printing of the information carriers and must be severed during the subsequent further processing of the information carriers. Since the bridges have a thickness which corresponds to the thickness of information carriers and carrier material, and since the width of the bridges also cannot be ignored, after the removal of each information carrier the separation points have parts remaining from the separation on the edge of the information carrier in the form of irregularities of the edge such as, with current quality requirements, is tolerated only in certain areas. For high-quality applications, for example in the case of visiting cards, labels on high-priced articles, name badges at conventions etc., arrangements according to the prior art cannot be used because of the unsightliness of the end product. However, for the high-quality applications addressed above there is a considerable requirement for a set of information carriers and carrier material in sheet form. With appropriate design, such a set makes it possible to produce information carriers which on the one hand have a high-quality fixed print, particularly in colour, and on the other hand can be additionally overprinted with variable information; in this case it should always be assumed that the information carrier when ready for use must have an unblemished appearance.
Visiting cards are a good example of an application of a set in sheet form. Visiting cards have an overwhelming importance in modern business life not only because of the record of the company and the name but also increasingly because of other information, such as telephone number, extension numbers, fax number, car phone number, address of a mailbox etc. In particular this supplementary information changes not infrequently due to moving, transfer or promotion. Also, when new staff are appointed it will be desirable to provide them quickly with visiting cards.
Thus while it may be assumed that some of the information on a visiting card, such as the company logo, company name and other elements of the corporate identity remain the same for a long time, other items of information change in a comparatively short time.
The conventional printing of visiting cards using the offset process is comparatively expensive because of the small print runs and therefore is only justified where individual members of staff require particularly large quantities of visiting cards.
Thus in the range of small and very small print runs it is desirable to make it possible for visiting cards with preprinted permanent information which applies to all or many members of staff to be provided quickly, neatly and prestigiously with the variable information which applies in the individual case.
A method which can be used for this is described in DE-B4134 288. This prior art teaches that card material in sheet form is first of all printed using offset or screen printing, then this material is shaped into individual labels or other information carriers in such a way that adjacent information carriers still remain connected by a tiny micro-link so that the set thus formed is then supplemented by means of a conventional desktop sheet printer and then the information carriers are removed from the set.
This known method constitutes a large step in the right direction, but cannot be used where during removal of the individual information carriers tiny remainders of the few small micro-links still remaining on the edges of the information carriers are disruptive.
The importance of a completely satisfactory edge to the finished information carrier is known and has also already led to finished stamped-out information carriers being adhered onto a carrier film and removed from the carrier film after the final printing with the variable information. This further prior art naturally produced information carriers with a completely unblemished edge from a large palette of high-quality materials. However, it was a disadvantage that in order to avoid residues of adhesive a coating had to be applied to the back of the information carriers before they were adhered to the carrier film. This coating looked unnatural and precluded the back from being printed, which in a large number of cases is desirable, for example in the case of bilingual visiting cards. A noticeably more serious shortcoming of this known proposal was that peeling off of the individual information carriers from the carrier film required a certain amount of effort and above all it very frequently resulted in the peeled off information carriers being slightly bent, seriously impairing the appearance. This conceivably undesirable bending can already be observed when comparatively thin selfadhesive labels are removed from their carrier film; however, the danger of curving grows with the increasing thickness of the carrier material.
The object of the invention, therefore, is to create a set in sheet form in which one- or multi-colour printing of small runs of information carriers in card form using offset and/or desktop printers can be made more economical and improved in quality by comparison with the prior art. Furthermore, apparatus and a method for producing such a set should be provided.